A digital rights organization has claimed to have harvested a vast number of tracks from Spotify and is getting ready to publish them publicly.
Potential Boost for AI Development
Observers said the seeming leak could aid artificial intelligence firms searching for data to develop their models.
An entity known as Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million audio tracks from Spotify and 256 million rows of associated data such as performer and record names. Spotify, which carries more than 100 million songs, confirmed that the breach did not represent its full inventory.
“We have located and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in illegal scraping,” said a Spotify representative.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorized access found a external actor scraped public metadata and employed questionable methods to bypass DRM [digital rights management].
Archive's Stated Goal and Worries
The streaming service does not believe the audio taken by Anna’s Archive has been released yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files accounted for 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘torrents’, a method of sharing large data files online.
“Of course the service doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a fantastic start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which describes its mission as “safeguarding humanity’s knowledge and heritage”.
AI Training and Intellectual Property Battleground
Ed Newton-Rex for defending artists’ copyright, remarked the leaked music would likely be used for training AI models.
“Training on pirated data is unfortunately common in the AI industry, so this accessed music is almost certain to be used training AI models,” he stated.
The group's website makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has allegedly been leveraged by the parent company of Facebook to train its AI models.
A founder of an AI startup wrote on LinkedIn that individuals of the public could in theory “create their own private free version of Spotify”. He said it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, writers and content creators on one side and tech giants on the other.
Policy Considerations and Responses
In the UK, artists and writers have protested against a ministerial proposal to allow AI companies utilize copyright-protected work without consent unless the rights holder opts out. Virtually every respondent to a government consultation on the proposal has backed artists’ concerns.
A government minister for science, innovation and development told parliament this month there was “little consensus” on the issue, noting that ministers would “use the time to get this correct”. The administration has pledged to make regulatory plans on AI and copyright by March 2025.
